From Nigeria to Athens, Muslim protests rumble on

DUBAI, Sept 23 (Reuters) - Muslims protested in Nigeria,Iran, Greece and Turkey on Sunday to show anti-Western angeragainst a film and cartoons insulting Islam had not dissipated.

As delegates from around the world gathered in New York fora U.N. General Assembly where the clash between free speech andblasphemy is bound to be raised, U.S. flags were once againburning in parts of the Muslim world.

Iranian students chanted "Death to America" and "Death toIsrael" outside the French embassy in Tehran in protest at thedecision by satirical magazine Charlie Hebdo to publish cartoonsof the Prophet Mohammad, days after widespread protests - somedeadly - against a film made in the United States.

Shi'ite Muslims in the Nigerian town of Katsina burned U.S.,French and Israeli flags and a religious leader called forprotests to continue until the makers of the film and cartoonsare punished.

In Pakistan, where fifteen people were killed in protests onFriday, a government minister has offered $100,000 to anyone whokills the maker of the short, amateurish video "The Innocence ofMuslims". Calls have increased for a U.N. measure outlawinginsults to Islam and blasphemy in general.

In Athens, some protesters hurled bottles of water, stonesand shoes at police who responded with teargas. Calm returnedwhen demonstrators interrupted the protest to pray.

ON ALERT

Protests around the world were relatively small and calm,but Western embassies remained on alert after the U.S.ambassador to Libya and three other Americans were killed in oneof the first protests, on Sept. 11.

The upsurge of Muslim anger - just weeks before U.S.elections - have confronted President Barack Obama with asetback yet in his efforts to keep the "Arab Spring" revolutionsfrom fuelling a new wave of anti-Americanism.

In U.S. ally Turkey, a secular Muslim state often seen as abridge between the Islamic world and the West, protesters setfire to U.S. and Israeli flags on Sunday.

"May the hands that touch Mohammad break," chanted some 200protesters before peacefully dispersing.

"We will certainly not allow uncontrolled protests, but wewill not just grin and bear it when Islam's prophet isinsulted," Prime Minister Tayyip Erdogan told party members atthe weekend.

"The protests in the Muslim world must be measured, and theWest should show a determined stance against Islamophobia."